Gugh

Gugh is a small island joined at low tide to St Agnes by a sandy strip called The Bar. It measures about one kilometre long and half a kilometre wide, with Kittern Hill rising to thirty-four metres. The land is made of Hercynian granite covered by shallow soils on higher ground and deeper sands lower down. Two whitewashed houses built in the 1920s by Charles Hamlet Cooper stand near the island’s narrow waist. The whole island lies within the Isles of Scilly Heritage Coast and is managed by the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust. The island is important for seabirds because the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project removed brown rats between 2013 and 2018. Ancient burial mounds and standing stones show people lived here in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. George Bonsor excavated Obadiah’s Barrow in 1901 and found unburnt bones inside. A Civil War battery once stood on Carn of Works, its magazine reused from an entrance grave. The island is now a Scheduled Monument, protecting its prehistoric landscape. Visitors walk across The Bar at low tide to reach Gugh’s open heath and bracken slopes. Kittern Hill offers wide views over the Scillies, while the coastal fringe holds dune grassland with western clover and sea holly. Dense gorse and bramble cover much of the interior, with pockets of heather and bell heather. The two 1920s farmhouses sit among bracken near the neck of the island. Stone mazes have recently appeared and should be discouraged to protect the habitat.